The World’s First Powered Flight
Ohio calls itself the “Birthplace of Aviation.” North Carolina proclaims itself “First In Flight.” Both take credit for the Wright brothers and their inventions. Which one has the most convincing bragging rights? Actually both states do.
Orville and Wilbur Wright are credited with inventing and building the world’s first successful airplane. They developed and built it in Dayton, Ohio. They transported it to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina where the first flight was made.
But not too many people were very impressed when they first did it. The brothers sent a telegram back home to their father in Ohio asking him to tell their hometown newspaper about what they did. The Dayton Journal refused to run the story because they said the flights were too short to be important. The publisher admitted years later that no one at the paper actually believed it.
Today marks the anniversary of the historic flight of the Wright brothers’ airplane at Kitty Hawk in 1903.